Europe’s Takeaway from the Israel-Iran War: Offense Is Still the Best Defense

Daniel Myers

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The relatively short, but intense, Israel-Iran conflict ultimately illustrated the need for countries to possess an effective shield (air defense capabilities, i.e. IAMD, A2AD, BMD) as well as a mighty sword (ability to conduct precision strikes), as well as need for stockpiles so that these operations can be sustained for substantial periods of time.

Israel’s sophisticated air defense system (largely aided by the U.S.) and its use of deep precision strikes to neutralize high-value targets (HVTs) gave it the upper hand, but Iran’s constant barrage of ballistic missiles and drones (although largely intercepted and inaccurate in targeting) still managed to make impact within Israel, revealing a vulnerability in its defense and causing significant physical and psychological damage.

As the EU seeks to build its own defense and military capabilities, leaders should be taking notes on what just played out in the Middle East.

Precision Strikes and Resilient, but Saturated, Defense Systems

On June 13, 2025, Israeli launched a large-scale offensive against Iran’s nuclear program and military assets. President Benjamin Netanyahu justified the attacks claiming that Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon threatening “Israel’s survival.” The initial wave of strikes hit Iran’s air defense installations and surface-to-air missile batteries, paving the way for future attacks. By the end of the conflict, Israeli precision strikes had killed 11 nuclear scientists, 30 senior security officials, destroyed around 800-1,000 Iranian missiles and hit 900 military sites. While most of Israel’s strikes were precise, out of the 1,100 people killed, 440 were civilians.

Iran first responded on the night of June 13 by launching a barrage of 150 ballistic missiles at Israel. In total, Iran used an estimated 370-550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 drones. The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) says about 50 of these drones made impact, killing 29 people, injuring some 3,000 others, and causing billions in damage as apartment buildings, military sites and parts of the power grid were hit. While about 86% of the ballistic missiles were intercepted, Le Monde reports illustrate the psychological impact in Israel at the start of the conflict: “The streets are empty, the faces anxious, the stores, schools, and businesses shuttered. Since the start of a new war with Iran on June 13, the country has ground to a halt once again.”

Israel's Qatar attack was a costly failure

Barak Ravid

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A week after Israel's missile strikes in Qatar, it's clear not only that the assassination attempt against Hamas leaders failed, but that it backfired.

Why it matters: The strike increased the feeling inside the Trump administration and around the world that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is reckless and has become a destabilizing force in the region.

How it happened: Israel's plan was to take out several of Hamas' top leaders all at once as they met to discuss President Trump's Gaza peace proposal.Five Hamas members were killed, along with a Qatari security officer, but the key targets all survived.

"None of the top Hamas leaders were killed. Maybe there were some shock victims," a senior Israeli intelligence official told Axios.

Netanyahu claimed the idea was that taking obstinate Hamas officials off the board would make it easier to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal.

Instead, the failed attack led to the indefinite suspension of negotiations. Hamas' negotiators went underground, and the outraged Qatari mediators suspended their efforts.A senior Israeli official told Axios Hamas had been moving "in the direction of a deal" and "we could have reached a breakthrough within days." Instead, the official argued, the strike sabotaged the talks.

Between the lines: Netanyahu wanted to apply more pressure on Qatar to squeeze Hamas, but the attack led to a swell of international solidarity with the Gulf emirate.Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani was hosted by Trump at Trump Tower and by Vice President Vance at the White House, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio jetted to Doha to discuss a defense agreement with Qatar.

Dozens of Western and Arab leaders issued statements condemning Israel and supporting Qatar, and Arab and Muslim leaders flocked to Doha for an emergency summit on Monday.

US ‘pivot to Asia’ never happened and likely never will

Leon Hadar

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More than a decade after President Barack Obama first announced America’s “pivot to Asia” in 2011, it’s time for an honest autopsy of what was supposed to be the defining strategic reorientation of the 21st century.

What we find is a textbook case of strategic overreach meeting geopolitical reality—a familiar pattern for anyone who has studied America’s post-Cold War foreign policy adventures. The pivot, later rebranded as the more diplomatically palatable “rebalance,” was sold as America’s recognition that the future lay in Asia, not the Middle East.

The strategy’s key areas included “strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights.”

It sounded comprehensive, forward-thinking and strategically sound. The reality, however, has been far messier.

Rather than executing a clean pivot away from Middle Eastern entanglements, America has remained engaged in crises across multiple theaters—from Afghanistan to Syria to Ukraine to Yemen to Iran—while trying to contain a rising China that has grown only more assertive over the past decade.

The fundamental flaw in the pivot was the assumption that America could simply choose its strategic priorities without accounting for the inconvenient tendency of global crises to impose their own logic.

While Washington declared its intention to focus on Asia, the Middle East refused to cooperate with American strategic planning. The Arab Spring, ISIS, Iran’s nuclear program and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict all demanded immediate American attention and resources.

This is not merely a failure of implementation—it’s a failure to understand the limits of American power and the interconnected nature of global challenges. US policymakers still operate under outdated assumptions about their influence, believing they can compartmentalize regions and threats in ways that the world simply doesn’t allow.

Poland Is Slowly Preparing for the Unthinkable: War with Russia

Reuben Johnson

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Troopers with 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division firing the 25mm canon on a Bradley fighting vehicle in order to zero the vehicles weapons systems at a range in Poland. Ranges such as these familiarize troopers with the vehicles systems in order to ensure combat readiness.

Key Points and Summary – Russia’s latest barrage sent more than 20 drones into Polish airspace, the first hostile act against a NATO member, and it triggered an immediate response in Poland.

-Thousands have volunteered for military training as Warsaw rolls out an Israeli-style ready-reserve plan aimed at 500,000 trained citizens.

-Prime Minister Donald Tusk says every adult male should be war-ready; women are signing up too, often using vacation days to train.

-Poland now fields NATO’s third-largest active force and spends 4.7% of GDP on defense. Officials expect 40,000 trainees in 2025, countering demographic decline and signaling resolve after years of Russian aggression nationwide.

In Response to Russian Drone Incursion, Thousands of Poles Sign Up For Military Training

WARSAW, POLAND – Last Tuesday, Russia fired more than 400 drones at Ukraine in one of its nightly attacks. Some 20 or more of these traveled into Polish airspace, making this incident officially the first hostile act committed by Moscow against a NATO member state in the history of the alliance.

The incident has had a dramatic effect on Poland, a Central European NATO member. Overnight, Russia has convinced thousands of citizens of this nation to sign up for voluntary military training.

What We Are Seeing in Poland Right Now

Trump's Middle East Dilemma

Amir Daftari

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President Donald Trump is confronting a complex diplomatic conundrum following Israel's unprecedented airstrike this month on Qatar's capital of Doha to target Hamas leaders attending U.S.-brokered ceasefire talks.

The September 9 attack has strained the U.S.'s relations with both Israel and Qatar, two key allies in the Middle East, complicating Trump's foreign policy in the region.

Newsweek has reached out the U.S. State Department for comment.

Why It Matters

The Israeli strike on Qatar has disrupted U.S. efforts to mediate peace and weakened Qatar's role as a regional mediator, raising questions about the future of the Abraham Accords—agreements brokered by the Trump administration that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations.

Beyond the diplomatic fallout, the attack also puts U.S.-Qatar trade and investment at risk while casting uncertainty over Al Udeid Air Base, America's largest military installation in the Middle East. At the same time, Israel remains one of Washington's closest strategic allies, benefiting from billions in annual military aid and extensive intelligence cooperation.

The incident underscores how regional instability threatens both economic and security interests, complicating Trump's balancing act between the two U.S. allies.

Earlier this year, Qatar solidified its position as a key U.S. economic partner. During his visit to Doha in May, Trump announced an "economic exchange" valued at at least $1.2 trillion.

A White House fact sheet, however, confirmed deals totaling $243 billion, including a $96 billion agreement for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 passenger jets from Boeing. Additionally, Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, pledged $500 billion in further investments in the U.S. economy over the next decade, signaling a long-term commitment to American markets.

Bowen: UN commission report on genocide is blunt indictment of Israel's actions in Gaza

Jeremy Bowen 

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The report is intended to be detailed and damning, presenting evidence it says shows that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It says that Israel has breached the Genocide Convention that was passed in 1948 by the newly established United Nations. The word genocide, and the convention that defined it as a crime, were directly inspired by the genocide of six million Jews by Nazi Germany.

Israel denies all allegations that its conduct in Gaza has broken the treaties and conventions that make up the laws of war and international humanitarian law. It justifies its actions as self-defence, in protection of its citizens and to force the release of the hostages taken by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on 7 October 2023, around 20 of whom are believed still to be alive.

The Israelis have dismissed the report as antisemitic lies inspired by Hamas. It was compiled by a commission of inquiry set up by the UN Human Rights Council. Israel and the US are boycotting the Council, which both countries say is biased against them.

But the findings of the report will feed into the growing international condemnation of Israel's conduct, which is also coming from Israel's traditional western allies as well as the Gulf Arab monarchies that normalised relations with Israel in the Abraham Accords.

Next week at the UN General Assembly in New York, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada and others are due to join the majority of UN members by recognising the sovereignty of an independent Palestinian state.

The move will be more than symbolic. It will change the debate about the future of the conflict that began more than a century ago when Zionist Jews from Europe came to settle in Palestine. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has condemned recognition as antisemitic, and a reward for Hamas terrorism.

He says the Palestinians will never have independence in any part of the land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, as a Palestinian state would put Israelis in danger. Israeli religious nationalists believe the land was granted to the Jewish people alone by God.

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, UN commission of inquiry says

David Gritten, London and Imogen Foulke,s Geneva

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Navi Pillay: "The committee concluded that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people"

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

A new report says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.

It cites statements by Israeli leaders, and the pattern of conduct by Israeli forces, as evidence of genocidal intent.

Israel's foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as "distorted and false".

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

At least 64,964 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen as reliable by the UN.

Most of the population has also been repeatedly displaced; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed food security experts have declared a famine in Gaza City.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

Ukraine’s Most Lethal Soldiers

Ken Harbaugh

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On Ukraine’s front lines, combat patches are currency. Soldiers trade their insignia for those of other units, mostly, but sometimes for alcohol and cigarettes. When I visited earlier this summer, I brought a stack of U.S. Navy patches from my time as an aviator, along with a rucksack that has featured a steady rotation of insignia from soldiers I’ve met in war zones around the world.

The latest addition is a camouflaged crab, the emblem of Ukraine’s 34th Coastal Defense Brigade. Even though the group was established less than a year ago, its drone operators may already rank among the deadliest fighters in the history of war. I joined three of them on June 1, one of the most intense days of Russia’s invasion, to see firsthand how they are remaking drone warfare.

Earlier that day, Ukrainian intelligence services had launched an attack deep inside Russia, targeting the bombers and surveillance aircraft that Russian President Vladimir Putin uses to terrorize Ukrainian cities. The operation destroyed up to a third of Russia’s strategic air fleet.

That night, after the attack had ended, I rendezvoused with a drone unit from the 34th Brigade in Kherson, in southern Ukraine. We met at a bombed-out gas station a few miles from the Zero Line, the edge of no-man’s-land. We were well within range of Russian artillery, but the bigger threat was the first-person-view (FPV) drones roaming the area, which allow a pilot to stalk their targets using a live video feed.

The Coming Tripolar World Order

Mike Nelson

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In words and actions, key foreign policy decision-makers within the Trump administration seem to be signaling a shift away from the United States’ global leadership role. If borne out, these changes are likely to usher in a new tripolar international system in which the United States, Communist China, and revanchist Russia divvy up spheres of influence. The result? A more dangerous world for Americans everywhere.

This month, Politico reported that the draft version of the coming National Defense Strategy places securing the Western Hemisphere above countering threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, and other global adversaries. Defense strategies, by definition, set priorities for the Pentagon as it determines how to allocate limited military assets. While previous blueprints—including one published by the first Trump administration in 2018— have focused on countering China, the latest one reverses the emphasis on America’s foremost geopolitical adversary.

If enacted, the defense plan would codify the Trump administration’s shift away from a U.S.-led world order. From withholding military aid to Ukraine to signaling an end to security assistance programs for NATO allies preparing to defend against Russian aggression, Donald Trump’s Department of Defense seems to be making it clear: The days of America playing a forward defense and acting as the guarantor of the liberal world order are waning. Instead, the administration has signaled plans to focus on a goal-line defense in our own neighborhood.

In an interview last week with his former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth articulated the rationale behind the Pentagon’s new approach. “We’re going to put America first. In this case, the Americas first—our hemisphere,” he said. “We’ve projected power for a long time in far-flung places that had a nebulous connection to our own security in the homeland. We’re securing the homeland.”

Is the U.S. at War With Venezuela? Latest Strike Raises Legal Concerns

Miranda Jeyaretnam

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The strike, conducted on Monday morning, killed three people off the coast of Venezuela. Trump claimed that the vessel was transporting drugs headed for the U.S. The strike comes less than a month after the U.S. mobilized military assets and personnel near the South American country and conducted a similar strike on another Venezuelan vessel, which killed 11 people.

“This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”

Trump included a 27-second video in the post that showed a vessel exploding and bursting into flames, which he said was proof that the boat carried drugs. It’s not clear from the video what was on the vessel.

“All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean—big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office. “We recorded them. It was very careful, because we know you people would be after us. We’re very careful.”

Still, Trump’s assurances, however, have done little to assuage concerns from some that the U.S. is headed toward—or already engaging in—an unauthorized war with Venezuela. Here’s what to know.

How Trump has targeted Venezuela in drug crackdown

The Trump Administration has said that its attacks on Venezuela are part of its wider crackdown on drug trafficking into the U.S. On the first day of his second term in office, Trump declared a national emergency over illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border. He has since imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, accusing the countries of not sufficiently clamping down on cross-border fentanyl smuggling, and on China over its alleged manufacturing of fentanyl. He also designated drug cartels, including Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist groups and labeled them a national security threat. Last month, he signed a secret directive to the Pentagon authorizing the use of military force against these cartels, according to the New York Times.

The Lies America Tells Itself About the Middle East

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

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On any given day during the long war in Gaza, a Biden administration official could be expected to assert any of the following: a cease-fire was around the corner, the United States was working tirelessly to achieve one, it cared equally about the Israelis and the Palestinians, a historic Saudi-Israeli normalization deal was at hand, and all this was bound up with an irreversible path to Palestinian statehood.

Not one of those pronouncements bore even a loose resemblance to the truth. Talks about a cease-fire dragged on, and when they fitfully bore fruit, the resulting understandings quickly fell apart. The United States refrained from doing the one thing—conditioning or halting the military aid to Israel that kept the fire from ceasing—that might have made it happen. Taking that step was also the one thing that might have demonstrated, beyond platitudes, a U.S. commitment to protecting both Israeli and Palestinian lives. Saudi Arabia kept repeating that normalization with Israel depended on progress toward a Palestinian state, and the Israeli government consistently ruled such progress out. The more time went on, the more U.S. statements were exposed as empty words, met with disbelief or indifference. That did not stop them from being made. Did U.S. policymakers believe what they said? If not, why did they keep saying it? And if they did, how could they ignore so much contrary evidence staring them in the face?

The falsehoods served as cover for a policy that enabled Israel’s ferocious attacks on Gaza and hailed the most modest, fleeting improvement in the situation in the Palestinian enclave as the product of American humanitarianism and resolve. Israel’s brutality worsened under the Trump administration, but those earlier falsehoods had paved the way. They helped normalize Israel’s indiscriminate killings; its targeting of hospitals, schools, and mosques; its use of access to food as a weapon of war; and its continued reliance on American weapons. They laid the ground and there was no turning back.

The deceit was not new. Its roots stretch back well before the war in Gaza and extend well beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It became a habit. For decades, the United States dissembled about its stance toward the conflict, posing as a mediator when it was an outright partisan. It dissembled when it helped put together a “peace process” that did far more to perpetuate and solidify the status quo than to upend it. It dissembled when it portrayed its broader Middle East policy as promoting democracy and human rights. It dissembled when it claimed success even as its efforts yielded serial disaster.

Ukraine Just Put AI Into Its FPV Drones—and They’re Already Winning

VLAD LITNAROVYCH

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Ukraine’s defense industry is taking a major step forward: drone giant Vyriy and autonomy pioneer The Fourth Law (TFL) have announced the launch of mass production of FPV drones equipped with advanced AI-driven guidance, TFL stated in a comment for UNITED24 Media on September 15.

The upgraded Vyriy-10, already one of the most widely used drones on the frontlines, will now come standard with TFL’s TFL-1 terminal guidance module, enabling precision strikes even under heavy jamming and electronic warfare.

“Over the past few months, we have been supplying TFL-1 modules to a number of combat brigades,” said Yaroslav Azhnyuk, CEO of The Fourth Law.

“The use of our system has increased drone strike effectiveness by 2–4 times, while the cost rises by only 10%,” he added.

TFL-1 AI module that can enable other FPV-drones to carry out strikes using AI targeting. (Source: The Fourth Law)

A major boost to frontline effectiveness

Vyriy CEO Oleksii Babenko said his team has personally tested the new systems, calling the AI-guided strikes a breakthrough.

“Artificial intelligence for target detection is a truly effective strike tool. It is an indispensable part of future guidance systems that significantly increases effectiveness. It is gratifying to note the progress of The Fourth Law: such companies provide exactly the kind of asymmetric solutions our army needs.”

Strategic Forecast: Russia Collapse Risk

Michael Woodson 

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This forecast estimates percentage odds for a collapse or partial collapse of the Russian state and economy if Russia’s war on Ukraine continues. It covers vital global interests in context, effects of diplomacy, factors causing collapse, demographic weaknesses, seized asset use, and the unlikelihood that Russia’s feared bombardment tactics will lead to Russian conquest in Ukraine. The thesis here is that Ukrainian liberation and sovereignty will sooner prevent Russia’s collapse by prompting an efficient, internal transition of power in Moscow that conserves resources. An ongoing Russian war for conquest in Ukraine will cause a lack of human capacity to sustain the great power state and economy Russians have come to expect.

Forecast

This forecast assumes consistent European political, military, and economic aid to Ukraine. It rests on the U.S. honoring its pledge to sell European powers the arms needed to replace those they send to Ukraine. It also depends on Ukrainian forces’ ongoing, adaptive military automation and Ukrainian expats returning at a reasonable rate to bolster Ukraine’s defense and morale. Finally, this forecast depends on many promised results-oriented U.S.-led sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and strategic actions to suppress Russia’s war-making capability if Mr. Putin refuses good faith peace and multilateral security guarantees for Ukraine.

The power vacuum after a Russian collapse will degrade Russia’s capacity to defend, secure, and control its weapons, valuable resources, and energy assets. Risk of catastrophic weapons proliferation to terrorists, use of black market weapons in warfare, and related accidents would rise, threatening all nations.

Vital Interests in Ukraine’s Liberation and Leadership

Preventing Russia’s collapse requires Ukraine’s liberation from Russian forces by Fall 2026. This will be of vital strategic interest to the world, including Russia. For the United States, Xi Jinping’s forewarning of an assault on Taiwan in 2027 incentivizes a Ukrainian liberation by Fall 2026 or sooner, as the U.S. deterrent to China increases with only one great power challenge to focus on.

Putin’s Stopgap Gambit Likely Futile

Israel’s Strike On Qatar: Redrawing The Rules Of Gulf Engagement – Analysis

László Csicsmann and Scott N. Romaniuk

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On 9 September 2025, Israel conducted an unprecedented airstrike on a residential complex in Doha, Qatar, targeting Hamas leadership amid ongoing ceasefire negotiations. The strike killed six individuals—including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, his office director, three bodyguards, and a Qatari security officer—while several others were wounded. Crucially, the group’s top leaders survived, highlighting the limited tactical gains and underscoring the operation’s primarily political and strategic intent.

The strike was part of a broader series of Israeli operations beyond its borders, affecting seven countries since the start of the year and signalling a new willingness to extend military reach into regional flashpoints. Politically and diplomatically, the ramifications are severe: by breaching Qatari sovereignty, Israel upended a long-standing regional norm that considered Gulf states—particularly U.S. allies—largely untouchable, injecting fresh uncertainty into Gulf diplomacy and the fragile architecture of regional security.

Timing, Tactics, and Strategic Signalling

The timing of the strike was audacious. Hamas leaders were convening to discuss a ceasefire proposal facilitated by Qatar, a critical mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s decision to act at this precise moment underscores a prioritisation of military objectives over diplomatic considerations, even at the risk of alienating a key U.S. partner. Operationally, the strike may have sought to disrupt Hamas’s chain of command and undermine ceasefire momentum. Yet, the survival of top officials suggests the immediate tactical impact was limited, emphasising that the operation’s true significance lies in its political and strategic signalling rather than battlefield outcomes.

Israel’s action sends a stark message: Hamas leadership is within reach, and Israeli military capability now extends beyond Gaza into Gulf territory. The message is directed not only at Hamas but at regional actors, demonstrating Israel’s willingness to act unilaterally when it perceives a strategic imperative—even at the cost of straining vital alliances.

Complicating U.S.-Gulf Relations and Qatar’s Mediation Role

Want Drone Dominance? Let the Squad Fail

Charlie Phelps 

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In Ukraine, a soldier is provisioned a low-cost drone from a factory that only began operations in the last twelve months, modifies it with a 3D printed part from a trench, and uses it the next day to spot Russian logistics movements. Meanwhile, the United States Army is just now beginning to meaningfully contend with mechanisms for tactical units to procure drone systems that match the performance levels Ukrainian forces have achieved while also complying with extensive cybersecurity, electromagnetic spectrum use, airworthiness, and compliance standards. This disparity captures the stark difference in how tactical innovation is treated in wartime versus peacetime militaries and highlights a truth we cannot ignore: If the US Army wants to remain a dominant landpower service in large-scale combat operations, it must radically decentralize innovation, especially in the realm of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). This innovation must occur at the lowest tactical level, within squads, platoons, and companies—and the Army should spend money accordingly. This will require tolerating failure, embracing commercial technology, and restructuring acquisition pathways to enable rapid, bottom-up iteration. In other words, the Army needs to apply the principles of the lean startup model, not to billion-dollar programs in the legacy defense industrial base, but to the nineteen-year-old specialist in the mud with a drone and a screwdriver.

Modern warfare is being transformed by the mass use of sUAS. Ukraine and Russia deploy drones for every tactical purpose imaginable: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, artillery spotting, electronic warfare targeting, psychological operations, logistics, and direct attack. Drones are no longer specialized tools; they are battlefield essentials. In large-scale combat operations, where contested airspace limits manned platforms and the electromagnetic environment is constantly shifting, the United States cannot rely solely on expensive and exquisite platforms. Recent announcements indicate that the Army recognizes that fact—the service is canceling procurement of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, for instance, and shuttering the Future Tactical UAS program, which had failed in seven years to field a replacement for the Shadow drone. But the mechanisms the service selects in place of the canceled programs to procure, field, and adapt drones will only succeed if they reflect an overarching principle: getting adaptable, expendable sUAS in the hands of the smallest units. The war in Ukraine has proven the battlefield value of sUAS beyond any doubt, but the US Army continues to treat drones as niche enablers. Drone density remains too low across brigade combat teams. Most formations are organized and trained for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance via manned platforms and top-down control, not decentralized swarms of cheap, modular systems. Despite small-scale pilot programs and innovation units, the Army remains tactically and culturally unprepared for the scale and speed of drone warfare in large-scale combat operations.

Army adopts venture capital model to speed tech to soldiers

Jen Judson

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The U.S. Army is rolling out a new initiative, dubbed Fuze, that leaders say will overhaul how the service invests in technology by borrowing from Silicon Valley’s venture capital playbook.

The service is betting that venture-style risk-taking can shave years off procurement timelines and will determine whether Silicon Valley speed can mesh with Pentagon scale.

“With Fuze, the Army is telling innovators that we’re open for business. Fuze will help us to not only invest but scale promising capabilities — bridging the valley of death,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said in a statement to Defense News.

Unlike traditional procurement that starts with an Army-defined problem followed by appointing a company to solve the problem, Fuze flips the approach. The new process allows the service to find technology to bring in “that helps us think about what our problems are differently,” Chris Manning, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for research and technology, told Defense News in a recent interview.

Venture capitalists make 100 investments and only end up with a few with outsized returns. The Army is accepting that same risk to capture bigger payoffs.

“We’re really taking the approach where we’re going to deliberately make a large number of investments in emerging tech companies,” Matt Willis, the Army’s Fuze program director, said in the interview. “Some tech might not reach the maturity that we want, [but] there’s going to be some companies that are going to have an outsized, revolutionary impact on our soldiers.”

The program aligns four existing fundings streams: XTech prize competitions, small-business funding, tech maturation and manufacturing technology — worth about $750 million in fiscal 2025.

The Army plans to initiate the program by running an XTech Disrupt live pitch competition, in partnership with Y Combinator — a technology startup accelerator and VC firm — at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference next month in Washington.

Netanyahu does not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders abroad

Tom Bennett Jerusalem

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Rubio's visit comes less than a week after Israel attacked the territory of US ally Qatar

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not ruled out further strikes on Hamas leaders following last week's attack in Qatar, saying they would not have immunity "wherever they are".

Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Netanyahu said every country had the right "to defend itself beyond its borders".

Israel's decision to target Hamas leaders in Qatar - a close US ally - drew international outrage and criticism from US President Donald Trump. Hamas said six people were killed but that its leaders survived.

Netanyahu's comments come days after the White House said Trump had assured Qatar "that such a thing will not happen again on their soil".

When pressed on whether the US had any involvement in the strike, Netanyahu told journalists: "We did it on our own. Period."

In response to a BBC question about whether the strike had damaged US relations in the region, Rubio said Washington maintained "strong relationships with our Gulf allies".

The pair presented a broadly united front, even amid the apparent tensions, with Rubio praising the two countries' technological and cultural ties - and Netanyahu saying Israel had "no better ally".

Their meeting comes as Arab leaders hold a summit in a show of support for Qatar. The Qatari prime minister urged the international community to stop applying "double standards" and to punish Israel.

The Mobile Command Post: Allowing the Commander to Command

Scott Henderson 

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Military Command, Control, and Communications systems have become increasingly complex as the military has scaled its intent for increasing joint operations. While these systems have been designed with good intent, evidence has shown that too much technology and information is both difficult to adopt at scale and can slow down operational tempo when it doesn’t work properly – which is likely in conflict. To solve this, this article has defined the principles of a modular (based on mission set), light, and sustainable Mobile Command Post that leverages currently-approved communication devices and vehicles to create an edge-based tactical command node. The intent is purely to unburden the unit commander from technology complexity and put that burden on the technology itself by using AI/autonomy-infused radios, sensors, and systems in one light command vehicle. This generates speed of decision-making and operations unseen in warfare.

The Wakeup Call Was 22 Years Ago:

In March 2003, a young, inexperienced US Army company commander unknowingly veered off course. The commander’s unit was supporting the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade’s push toward Nasiriyah. But a wrong turn off Highway 8 placed them directly on Highway 7—into the heart of the city and into the jaws of a waiting Iraqi Army ambush.

The young officer realized the mistake only after passing the Al-Quds News Headquarters, a landmark not listed in his planning materials. Minutes later, the convoy was engulfed in small arms, rockets, mortar, and tank fire. Eleven American soldiers were killed. Six were captured. The firefight lasted 30 minutes before Alpha Company of the 2nd MEB, led by USMC Major Bill Peoples, arrived to rescue the survivors.

This wasn’t just a tragic navigation error. It was a failure of command-and-control systems—a breakdown in connectivity, interoperability, and technological readiness. The Army company was the last in a 600-vehicle convoy. Mechanical issues had slowed them down, separating them from the main force and cutting them off from higher headquarters. The Marines they were supporting operated on a different frequency and network. The officer’s only tools were a CD-ROM mission plan, a SINCGARS radio that lost power, and a handheld Garmin GPS—which was jammed as soon as contact was made.

US drone dilemma: Why the most advanced military in the world is playing catchup on the modern battlefield

Haley Britzky, Isabelle Khurshudyan
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The future of warfare felt a lot like playing a video game. Soldiers fastened on virtual-reality glasses and then moved their fingers across the joystick in their palms. A small drone buzzed and lifted in response.

At a military base in Texas last month, American soldiers trained on how to operate small quadcopters, the kind that now dominate the battlefield in Ukraine and are increasingly the weapon of choice for combatants around the world.

With an explosive attached, a drone costing less than $1,000 can destroy a tank worth millions.

For troops at Fort Bliss in El Paso — members of the Multi-functional Reconnaissance Company, 6-1 Cavalry Regiment — the technology and tactics were still new. And for the US military, that’s a problem.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred a flurry of evolution in drone warfare — so much so that the US, with one of the most advanced militaries and defense industrial complexes in the world, found itself behind. Most American soldiers lack the know-how for fighting with unmanned systems, and while the US has excelled at building large, expensive weaponry — fighter jets, tanks, precision-guided missiles — it is in many ways unprepared to quickly produce large quantities of small, cheap systems, like drones.

Defense officials are now rushing to catch up.

In July, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth circulated a memo to senior leaders aimed at accelerating the US military’s adoption of drones. In recent months, US troops began building and 3-D printing drones and training on simulators reminiscent of video games to learn how to guide small systems through windows, around corners or into an enemy tank’s hatch.

India’s thaw in relations with China is nothing to fear

Lyle Goldstein

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to China has rightly gotten the attention of many global strategists. Some in Washington seem especially concerned that Modi’s first trip to China since 2018 signals a potential rapprochement between New Delhi and Beijing, a development that could undermine many years of U.S. efforts to build up India as a counterweight to growing Chinese power in Asia.

Yet, it would be a major mistake to view this evident turnaround in China-India relations through a zero-sum lens (and thus as a problem for U.S. national security). American national interests will be well served if the two Asian giants can “bury the hatchet” on their decades-long border dispute, embrace compromise and return to more pragmatic bilateral relations.

For one, global trade and prosperity will be enhanced through much more extensive China-India trade linkages and, fundamentally, the world will not have to watch nervously as two nuclear-armed powers engage in regular, violent skirmishing. Most importantly, U.S. interests will be served by accepting the new multipolar world, including the distinct Chinese and Indian poles within that new global order.

China-India relations have never been warm in recent decades, but they became especially tense after a June 2020 skirmish in the Galwan Valley of the Himalayan mountains that forms the border between the two Asian giants. That incident was remarkable in two respects: first, there was a rather heavy loss of life on both sides, and second, because neither side resorted to the use of firearms.

That latter point reflects an admirable level of restraint, but New Delhi opted to take strenuous measures to curb India’s diplomatic and economic contacts with China after the conflict. Indeed, New Delhi went much further than Washington in placing draconian restrictions against Chinese companies in the Indian market. As if to rub salt in the wound, it was Chinese-made missiles and fighters that scored victories for the Pakistan Air Force against Indian fighters during the early summer 2025 fighting over Kashmir. Thus, New Delhi’s decision to pursue a more conciliatory line on China comes as somewhat of a surprise.

A challenging time for Indian diplomacy

Karan Thapar

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Just as the US ambassador-designate Sergio Gor admitted to “minor hiccups” in India-US ties and assured that the two countries are “not that far apart right now on a (trade) deal”, one could ask how badly damaged the relationship is. What impact could improving relations between Washington and Beijing have on India’s relationship with America? And if India doesn’t stop buying Russian oil could we see a second or, even, third phase of additional tariffs?

Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran believes “this is certainly a most challenging time for Indian diplomacy. There is no doubt that we are perhaps in a more vulnerable situation than we’ve been for quite some time”. Meanwhile, there have been positive exchanges between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi on social media. Parallelly, Trump is reported to have asked the European Union to impose 100% tariffs on India if Delhi persists with oil purchases from Moscow.

Let’s come to developments that could seriously impact Delhi’s relationship with Washington. First, Trump continues to talk about his very good relationship with China and his friendship with Xi. He’s keen to do a deal with Beijing and he’s even talked about visiting China. The question is how far will he go? Could he sacrifice Quad for a big deal with China? The New York Times says Trump has no plans to visit India for the Quad Summit. Does this mean the Indo-Pacific strategy is no longer central to the Trump Administration’s foreign policy? That would have a markedly deleterious influence on India-US relations. It would push us to the margins from the central position we once had in America’s policy vis-à-vis China. Saran puts it pithily: “India is most comfortable when its relations with the US and China are better than their relationship with each other.” That’s not the case today. The vibes between Washington and Beijing are certainly better than those between Washington and Delhi.

This raises the question: Is there a possibility of some sort of G2 emerging between America and China? If yes, would that “legitimise” China’s dominance of the Asian region? India definitely would not want that.

The Multi-Polar World Order: Rise of Civilisational States in India, China & Russia and the decline of Western Hegemony

Navroop Singh and Himja Parekh

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In geopolitics, history often provides the clearest playbook, but only for those willing to learn. The United States once mastered the art of pragmatic statecraft in the 1970s, when the Cold War seemed locked in stalemate. Rather than doubling down on confrontation with both Moscow and Beijing, Washington, under Richard Nixon and guided by Henry Kissinger, engineered a bold strategic pivot i.e. opening to China. This move reshaped the global balance of power, isolating the Soviet Union and ultimately tilting the Cold War in America’s favour. At its core, Kissinger’s doctrine recognized that stability required engagement, balance, and the willingness to work even with adversaries when interests aligned. Trump’s tariff-heavy strategy, by contrast, ignores these lessons. His “all-or-nothing” approach seeks to punish rivals and pressure partners simultaneously, leaving the United States isolated while others recalibrate. Where Kissinger wielded diplomacy to split adversaries, Trump’s failure to recognize this doctrine risks driving them together.

Henry Kissinger’s doctrine of statecraft was rooted in the cold logic of balance of power realism, where nations act not on sentiment but on interest, and stability emerges not from moral absolutes but from calibrated equilibrium. For Kissinger, the art of diplomacy lay in managing rivalries rather than seeking to eliminate them. His worldview rejected the “all-or-nothing” confrontational approach and instead emphasized triangular diplomacy, leveraging differences between powers to America’s advantage. This philosophy produced the famous U.S.-China opening in the 1970s, which split Beijing from Moscow and reshaped the Cold War’s strategic geometry. Kissinger believed that durable order could not be built on ideology but only through recognition of spheres of influence, acceptance of limits, and pragmatic engagement with adversaries. His statecraft was not about domination but about managing contradictions, keeping adversaries off balance while ensuring the United States always held the decisive weight in the global balance.

After Indonesia, Nepal — is the Philippines next to erupt?

Jason Gutierrez

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MANILA – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Monday said police would not stop a nationwide protest planned for this Sunday, while vowing to investigate alleged massive corruption in state infrastructure projects.

Filipinos have been glued to their television sets in recent days as both houses of Congress probed graft allegations tied to state-funded flood control projects.

The news has coincided with the monsoon season, which has put many parts of the capital, Manila, and nearby suburbs under water. The deluge has embarrassed Marcos, who last year boasted about the completion of many flood-control projects.

University students and activists have taken to the streets in droves in recent days and vowed to stage a bigger, nationwide protest on September 21. That’s raised concerns that public anger is mounting and could snowball into massive, destabilizing protests similar to those recently seen in Indonesia and Nepal.

That date marks the anniversary of the declaration of martial law by Marcos’ late father and namesake, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, whose two-decade abusive regime was ended by a “people power” revolt in 1986.

The Marcos family name is synonymous with corruption to many Filipinos; the late dictator is believed to have plundered untold billions from state coffers and parked them overseas. Thousands of activists also went missing or were killed, in what many considered the darkest years in modern Philippine history.

Marcos Jr, also known as Bongbong, won the presidency overwhelmingly in 2022, and on several measures since has appeared to be on the right track. For one, he has been laser-focused on defense and sovereignty by pivoting back to the United States to defend the country’s contested sea border vis-à-vis an expansionist China.

Next is what? On Nepal.

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This post is different from our usual focus at The Araniko Project. But as Nepali co-founders watching the chaos unfold from Beijing, it is difficult to remain silent and feel the need to share some reflections on the aftermath of the past two days of protest.

This post is only about Nepal. If you want to know what happened in the past 48 hrs, please read Kalam Weekly

What we witnessed in these past two days in Nepal is a war of two worlds. On one side stand the old regimes and their old netas, with their outdated mindset of conducting daily public affairs. Until just 48 hours ago, they were the invincibles. Now, Nepal’s ruling elites stand among the fallen: disgraced and deposed, fleeing for their lives with almost no path back to the political stage.

On the other side lies the outlook for a “new Nepal,” which has not yet even been born. There is still no certainty (as of this writing) as to who will lead the interim government. And while the protestors relish on the carnage of 9/9, is there any guarantee this will turn out better?

Mercilessly beating politicians nearly to death, burning a former Prime Minister’s wife, vandalizing the streets, and destroying public property: these are no longer Gen Z protests. These are hooligans, who in their desperation and anger failed to see the evil in themselves. If its the outlook for “new Nepal,” then what is the difference between the upcoming “new” and the already “old”? We can only hope we don’t end up with the worst of both worlds.

In the digital age, network power such as social media has challenged traditional state authority, as seen in the Gen Z protest that led to the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Oli. But such network power can only challenge and overthrow; it cannot successfully govern a country. It also needs a stable structure and well functioning bureaucracy.

That is where the greatest challenge lies. The protestors have burned down Singha Durbar (the country’s administrative center and repository of key government records), the Supreme Court, educational institutions, Nepal Telecom, banks, hotels, large corporations, and even media institutions like Kanitpur: essentially every major structural institution shaping Nepal’s functioning has collapsed. Thousands of papers, documentations, gone in seconds! prisoners escaped from prison!

Chinese Cyber Skirmishes in the Indo-Pacific Show Emerging Patterns of Conflict

Gil Baram

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China’s Salt Typhoon hacking campaign has taken on new urgency with revelations it may have compromised the data of millions of Australians. This demonstrates how cyber operations have evolved beyond merely gathering intelligence.

When first identified by U.S. government partners back in mid-2023, the campaign by the Salt Typhoon group was assessed as a targeted espionage effort against U.S. and allied government systems. It involved stealthy intrusions, selective data theft and probing of networks in a handful of countries. At the time, the effect was thought to be limited and largely confined to government targets.

But August 2025 disclosures have shown just how broad the campaign truly has been. The Australian Signals Directorate, working with 20 foreign partners, has publicly attributed the operation to Beijing’s Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation now assesses that Salt Typhoon has struck dozens of countries, sweeping up telecommunications, transport, lodging and civilian data on a massive scale.These operations may have reached virtually every Australian household and millions more across partner nations.

Cyber operations now function as tools for coercion and competition, influencing the balance of power across the Indo-Pacific. They are central to rivalry. Even as governments invest in resilience and attempt to set boundaries, the persistent tension between the United States and China ensures that new vulnerabilities and threats will continue to emerge.

The Indo-Pacific is the epicentre of 21st-century competition. China and the U.S. vie for influence, while South Korea, India, Japan and Southeast Asian countries all face mounting digital vulnerabilities. With the digital economy of Southeast Asian nations expected to surpass U.S.$1 trillion by 2030, growth is driving their prosperity but also compounding risk.

Don’t Overestimate the Autocratic Alliance

Patricia M. Kim

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No moment captured the shifting global balance of power more vividly than when Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked in lockstep on the red carpet at China’s military parade in early September. The three autocrats, despite a long history of mutual suspicion, projected a show of unity against Washington. The message behind the carefully managed scene was unmistakable: China is at the center of a rising anti-Western bloc, while the United States is adrift—divided at home, faltering abroad, and rebuffed by its rivals.

U.S. President Donald Trump has made no secret of what he wants from each of the three leaders: a peace deal with Putin to end the war in Ukraine, a trade pact with Xi to rebalance the U.S.-Chinese economic relationship, and a summit with Kim to revive stalled diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. But all three have spurned his overtures. Instead of engaging on Washington’s terms, Kim, Putin, and Xi are now linking arms in Beijing, flaunting not only their growing willingness to challenge U.S. leadership but also their ability to do so in concert.

But beneath this show of solidarity, China, North Korea, and Russia remain uneasy partners. What the three countries have is a tactical alignment rooted not in trust or shared values but in overlapping grievances and necessity. History demonstrates that they are not natural allies. Each state remains wary of entrapment and is unwilling to subordinate its national interests to those of the others. And crucially, each still seeks something from the United States—leverage that Washington must wield wisely.

THREE’S A CROWD

AI experts return from China stunned: The U.S. grid is so weak, the race may already be over

Eva Roytburg

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“Everywhere we went, people treated energy availability as a given,” Rui Ma wrote on X after returning from a recent tour of China’s AI hubs.

For American AI researchers, that’s almost unimaginable. In the U.S., surging AI demand is colliding with a fragile power grid, the kind of extreme bottleneck that Goldman Sachs warns could severely choke the industry’s growth.

In China, Ma continued, it’s considered a “solved problem.”

Ma, a renowned expert in Chinese technology and founder of the media company Tech Buzz China, took her team on the road to get a firsthand look at the country’s AI advancements. She told Fortune that while she isn’t an energy expert, she attended enough meetings and talked to enough insiders to come away with a conclusion that should send chills down the spine of Silicon Valley: In China, building enough power for data centers is no longer up for debate.

“This is a stark contrast to the U.S., where AI growth is increasingly tied to debates over data center power consumption and grid limitations,” she wrote on X.

The stakes are difficult to overstate. Data center building is the foundation of AI advancement, and spending on new centers now displaces consumer spending in terms of impact to U.S. GDP. That’s concerning since consumer spending is generally two-thirds of the pie. McKinsey projects that between 2025 and 2030, companies worldwide will need to invest $6.7 trillion into new data center capacity to keep up with AI’s strain.

In a recent research note, Stifel Nicolaus warned of a looming correction to the S&P 500, since it forecasts this data center capital expenditures boom to be a one-off build-out of infrastructure, while consumer spending is clearly on the wane.

However, the clear limiting factor to the U.S.’s data center infrastructure development, according to a Deloitte industry survey, is stress on the power grid. Cities’ power grids are so weak that some companies are just building their own power plants rather than relying on existing grids. The public is growing increasingly frustrated over increasing energy bills. In Ohio, the electricity bill for a typical household has increased at least $15 a month this summer from the data centers, while energy companies prepare for a sea change of surging demand.

What China Wants With Global Governance

Steven Langendonk and Matthew D. Stephen

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What does China want from world order? Many observers, especially in the West, look upon China’s growing assertiveness and expanding ambitions with trepidation. In a speech on China-EU relations in 2023, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that “the Chinese Communist Party’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its center.” She went on to characterize China’s diplomacy in multilateral institutions as demonstrating a “determination to promote an alternative vision of the world order. One, where individual rights are subordinated to national security. Where security and economy take prominence over political and civil rights.”

Similarly, in a speech at the Körber Foundation in Berlin in January 2025, Friedrich Merz – then Germany’s opposition leader, currently the chancellor – lumped China in with Russia as the leaders of a new systemic conflict between liberal democracies and “anti-liberal autocracies,” which aggressively oppose the multilateral order as it has existed since the end of World War II Such statements follow in the footsteps of the United States, which classified China as a “revisionist” power in 2017.

While increasingly widespread, the view of China as an existential challenge to world order reflects political alarmism more than sober analysis. Our research on China’s ambitions for world order leads us to a different conclusion. While China does indeed pose a challenge to some aspects of the contemporary world order, there is little evidence to suggest that it poses a greater challenge to world order than other revisionist powers, including today’s United States. Moreover, China’s ambitions vary across different domains of world order, where it faces challenges that limit what it can achieve.

Owing to its growing influence around the world, what China wants for world order has become one of the decisive questions of our time. Scholars have sought to identify and understand China’s goals using a variety of methods. Some look at China’s domestic political and economic order, which is authoritarian capitalist, and extrapolate this to the international level. Others infer China’s preferences based on theoretical arguments about its position in the international system. We argue that a more accurate picture can be gained by looking empirically at China’s track record. In particular, we focus on two aspects of China’s behavior: what it says (i.e. its vision for world order) and what it does (i.e. its behavior in different international regimes).